Articles from the Dictionary of Literary Biography Russian Writers, 1800–1917 (M.A. Sukennikov. S.N. Shil’)

The Dictionary of Literary Biography Russian Writers, 1800–1917 (since 1989 there appeared 5 vols – Abaza K.K. – Solonitsyn V. Ap.) is among the most ambitious projects in our literary studies. The Dictionary containing about 2000 Russian men of letters and having provided a huge corpus of the most exact and comprehensive data including bibliographical and archival indexes, gave a powerful impetus to the literary history in the course of the long-term meticulous work on the edition. The Dictionary was a stimulating and strict professional school for a generation of scholars. Founders, authors and the editorial board of Literaturny Fact expect the 6th volume, the last one of the Dictionary, to be published in the coming anniversary year (30 years ago the first volume appeared). Unfortunately strictly limited wordage of the last volume requires conciseness and laconicism; creative freedom typical for the vols. 3-5 (attentive readers can see the difference between vols. 3-5 and 1-2, when the editorial board and the authors were still trying to follow the patterns of the Great Soviet encyclopedia) is impossible. Hence publishing of the enlarged versions of the articles from vol.6 is very important – it is quite possible that this consistent work will become a full-fledged academic project in itself. Literatrny Fact plans to publish the preprints and discussions to present the last volume of the Dictionary in full. In this issue of Literaturny Fact read articles on the Russian writers and translators Mikhail Sukennikov (1876–1948) and Sofia Shil' (1863–1928).